An Open Essay from a Policewoman’s Wife

Many of you reading this probably know that I am married to an incredible woman named Laine. She is kind, and funny, and insanely giving. But most importantly, she loves me fiercely. Let me tell you something about ME; I can be hard to love. I can be opinionated and moody. I have cleanliness OCD when it comes to our home, in which she has embraced fully. And I can be struck with anxiety about almost anything. The DVR didn’t record American Idol this week?! PANIC. Winnie stuck her nose in some dirt and now is a little messy? FREAK OUT. Point is, she loves me through all of my flaws and I am not worthy, just incredibly lucky.

For those of you who do not know, Laine is a Police Officer. She has been for the past 4 years. She decided she wanted to get into the field of upholding the law while in college at Nicholls State in Louisiana where she was playing Division I softball. She finished out her career at Hardin-Simmons in Abilene; same place that she began her career as a policewoman. She chose a career that is dangerous, tiring, yet rewarding. And sometimes can be pretty thankless. However, there are those times that I am with her and she tells someone about her line of work, and she’ll get a handshake followed by a “Thank you for your service”. I always feel incredibly proud in those moments.

It is no secret that this career that my wife has chosen is one that has recently resurfaced as a controversial topic in our country. The controversy really began to gain more and more noise when we first started dating in late 2015, and since then, we have had to endure some incredibly hard news stories. From videos of yet another shooting by a police officer, to stories about cops being killed point blank in their squad cars. Remember the part about me struggling with anxiety about something as simple as a DVR malfunction? Now imagine not being able to escape articles and videos of men and women being killed in the same uniform that your spouse puts on every single week. The worry is indescribable. It is constant. I had to stop watching the news, for fear of hearing yet another story of a police officer being killed, leaving me wondering if that is something that I will ever have to face. My heart aches an unbearable pain just thinking about it.

However, as much as I am my wife’s biggest fan and will fight to defend her every chance that I get, it is not lost on me that there are a number of African American families that would argue that they too are faced with a similar story. Imagine not being able to escape articles and videos of men and women being killed with the same skin color that your child, or spouse, or sister, or brother, has on every single day. It is not lost on me that just as I am feeling pain, there are also men and women on the other side of this controversy that are feeling incredible heartache as well. For them, I am just as heartbroken as I am for all of the families that have lost police officers to this horrible violence.

Our world is divided on this issue in a way that I struggle to understand. Our society has made it abundantly clear that you are either pro-police or a Black Lives Matter advocate. There is no in between. You cannot be both. I cannot tell you the number of posts that I have seen, some even from friends, bashing police for all being legal killers. ALL police. It is insanity. It is inaccurate. And in the same breath, I am able to say– you know what else is incredibly inaccurate? Insanely wrong? Labeling or profiling all black people as criminals. It’s crazy talk. It’s asinine. So my question, one that I wish I could scream to the entire world, is this.

Just because I am in love with a Police Officer, and fully support her career and the organization that she gives her life to — does that mean that I do not think black lives matter?

The answer to that question is absolutely not. I am married to a police officer. Of course I support the law enforcement community. How could I not? The woman that I love puts on that uniform every single week. And every single week, at least once a shift, the thought runs through my mind about losing her to this hate-filled war. And through all of that, guess what? I believe, with every bone in my body, that OF COURSE black lives matter. I stand with the families who have lost one of their own to gun violence in which a police officer pulled the trigger. I can tell you right now, as someone who has major skin in the game on one side of this controversy, you can 100% be someone who supports both of these causes. You can back the blue and fully and genuinely be intolerant to the ill treatment of African Americans. Are you someone who advocates regularly for the Black Lives Matter movement? Fantastic! Our world needs more and more of you. Are you someone who stands with the Back The Blue movement? Awesome! I’m so glad we have activists like you. There are so many people in this world fighting for what speaks to them, and it is so inspiring to see such passion. But here is the real beauty. Here is what we need to remember. Just because you fight hard for one, does not make you an enemy of the other.

I cannot give any perspective when it comes to being African American. I am white. And I will not attempt to speak for a community that I am not a part of. One that deals with hardships that I cannot pretend to understand. The only commonality that I can cling to is that I do know what it is like to be a part of a minority group. And to fear how people may treat me, or speak to me, all because of who I am. Both sexual orientation and race offer opportunities for people to discriminate against another, and therefore, I can sympathize with the fear that comes with being marginalized. It is not fun. It is not fair. However, I will not pretend to compare the two as if they are the same. All I can do is say with truth and integrity, that I, the wife of a police officer, do not and will not tolerate the profiling or killing of innocent African Americans.

Laine always questions, “How can anyone think that we want to hurt innocent people? The worst day of my career is the day that I have to make the decision on whether or not to shoot.” Now, I know that some people will shake their head at that statement. I KNOW that I cannot change every person’s mind on such a heavy issue. But I feel compelled to share that thought; a thought that Laine has said out loud on a consistent basis. Because as passionate as I feel about the safety of African American lives’, I also feel in my heart of hearts that a majority of the police officer’s who drew their weapons and shot a subject did not go into work that day with the intention of doing so. I do not believe that they reported for their shift that day on a hunt to kill someone. However, there are MANY people in our world who believe that this is in fact the case. That police officer’s have guns, and they cannot wait to use them to shoot down human beings, as if they are to be hunted. This is the part that shakes me to my core. If you’ve met my Laine girl, you know how gentle and kind she is. She became a police officer because she wanted to give her life to a career that would help people. I know that I cannot speak for every single cop out there. I know that there are really bad apples in every single job. And I know that I am only speaking to the kind and nurturing nature of my Laine. But I have also had the chance to meet a number of the people that Laine works with, and I can tell you that they are just humans. Humans with wives and husbands and kids. Humans that are simply just trying to work hard and make a difference in their communities. My heart aches that these men and women of service are all clumped together into one huge stereotype. I have friends on the internet who think MY wife is a cold bloodied murderer just because she wears that blue uniform. She is not. She never will be.

The point is, I believe we have room in our hearts to support more than one cause. As a matter of fact, I know that we do. Why must we support one movement, while terrorizing the other? Both of these groups include human beings. REAL people who are mothers, fathers, sisters, siblings, and children. My hope is that this issue can become less segmented and more inclusive. That everyone can come together and agree that you can be fiercely supportive of the black community while also respectful of this country’s police force. That we can and we should have open dialect in regards to this subject in hopes that we can open our eyes and our hearts to both sides of this war. I stand proud to love a police officer with all of my heart, while still genuinely and fiercely caring about the safety and equality of black people in America. Who decided that you must pick one or the other? I for one, will not. And I hope that other’s will think twice before terrorizing one side to show that they are in support of the other. I’ll just be over here backing the lives of both the black and the blue, and you’re always welcome in my corner.

Kaila